This article reports the efforts of an elementary school teacher of Spanish as a second language to implement principles of dynamic assessment (DA) in her daily interactions with learners. DA is neither an assessment instrument nor a method of assessing but a framework for conceptualizing teaching and assessment as an integrated activity of…

Education seeks to unfold the latent qualities of a person, thereby giving full development to the individual. As such, it has been described as the act or art of developing, or creating, cultivating the various physical intellectual, aesthetic and moral faculties of the individual. Scheduled Tribe has a history of social and economic deprivation,…

The increasing influence of sociocultural theories of learning on assessment practices in second language education necessitates an expansion of the knowledge base that teacher-assessors need to develop (what teachers need to know) and related changes in the processes of language teacher education (how they learn and develop it). Teacher assessors…

Vygotsky-inspired sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1962) indicates that human learning is mainly a social and cultural process that occurs through meaningful negotiation and interaction (scaffolding) between learners. The present study investigates whether training student reviewers can help them provide stronger scaffolding for their peers through…

Despite career satisfaction models being well established, little is understood about the career satisfaction of indigenous employees. Using a sample of 172 Maori employees, the indigenous people of New Zealand, we tested a career satisfaction model with a cultural wellbeing factor over and above established factors of human capital,…

Despite the growing interest in examining the link between peer-peer collaborative dialogue and second language (L2) development in recent years (Swain, Brooks, & Tocalli-Beller, 2002), much of the empirical work in this regard focused on face-to-face communication, leaving the operationalization of collaborative dialogue in text-based…

Chaos theory is often associated with post modernism. However, one may make the point that both terms are misunderstood. The point of this article is to define both terms and indicate their relationship. Description: Chaos theory is associated with a definition of a theory dealing with variables (butterflies) that are not directly related to a…

The main purpose of this study was to bridge the gap between the literature on cognitive variables related to English literacy learning skills, as suggested by the simple view of reading, and the literature on sociocultural variables, specifically acculturation. The sample consisted of 94 Chinese immigrant adolescents from grades 7-12 in Waterloo…

This case study describes how sociocultural and activity theory were applied in the design of a publicly funded, Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB)-based English as a Second Language (ESL) credential program and curriculum for immigrant and international students in postsecondary institutions in British Columbia, Canada. The ESL Pathways Project…

This meta-analysis examines the effectiveness of a group of instructional approaches (i.e., cooperative, collaborative, and peer tutoring) at improving literacy outcomes for English language learners. Main effects analyses of a sample of 28 experimental and quasi-experimental studies reveal that peer-mediation is more effective for ELLs than…

This case study proposes a critical multicultural analysis of a Romanian language textbook used for instructing students in grades one and two in the Elementary Language International Program (ELIP) in Toronto public schools in Ontario, Canada. Based on an analysis developed from Fairclough and Parker's criteria, this paper determined stereotypes…

What we know through language is whether the way things are or the ways the things are constructed through anthropological tradition and socio cultural shaping. Actually at the very outset, it is not very clear the settling point of this query. However, we can very well understand the point why a critical understanding of…

Dynamic assessment as a complementary approach to traditional static assessment emphasizes the learning process and accounts for the amount and nature of examiner investment. The present qualitative study analyzed interactions for 270 reading test items which were recorded and tape scripted. The reading ability of 9 EFL participants at three…

As an area of classroom research, Interaction Analysis developed from the need and desire to investigate the process of classroom teaching and learning in terms of action-reaction between individuals and their socio-cultural context (Biddle, 1967). However, sole reliance on quantitative techniques could be problematic, since they conceal more than…

The processes of modernization in this country's economy require a well-qualified work force that is mobile in social, professional, and geographic terms. The necessary basis of a successful solution to this problem is the stability of the family, which is the basic active agent of the reproduction of new generations of workers. Family stability…